Like most people, I paid for Windows 7 and don’t want it turning into a nasty piece of adware and malware. This post is how to remove KB3035583 which is the Windows update that that places the Windows 10 advert in your taskbar. There are quite a few guides out there but this is a quick collection of the command lines you need to use which is so much faster than clicking around a GUI (and can be put in a batch script….. 🙂 )

Step 1 – Open up a command prompt

Start->Run and type

cmd

then click OK.

Step 2 – Kill the adware process

taskkill /F /IM gwx.exe

Step 3 – Nuke the update

wusa /Uninstall /KB:3035583

Sadly, this fails with an error on some machines forcing some GUI navigation Control Panel > Programs and Features > View installed updates and then search in the list for Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3035583). Right click and select Uninstall.

Step 4 – Delete the rubbish it leaves behind

takeown /f %WinDir%\System32\GWX /r /d y
icacls %WinDir%\System32\GWX /grant administrators:F /t
del /f %WinDir%\System32\GWX

Step 5 – Reboot

Pat yourself on the back that the adware has been stopped!